Shopify Blog

Show

Home Shopify Blog

How to Find the Best Time to Post on TikTok

How to Find the Best

Time to Post on
TikTok
by Lauren Strapagiel Social Media
Jan 31, 2022 6 minute read Leave a comment

Compared to other social media platforms,

TikTok can feel like there’s some magic at
work.

A cool dance, a funny phrase, a new song—

any of these can turn from obscure to mega-
viral overnight, in ways that are hard to
predict but delightful to watch. However, if
you’re a creator or a business, hoping for a
little luck and magic isn’t a very good place to
build a social media strategy from. There is, in
fact, some science and data to what can
seem like viral chaos.

A TikTok strategy—especially one for a brand,

not a celebrity—takes legwork. Finding the
best time to post is one piece of that strategy,
and one of the simpler aspects to figure out.

Start Your Business

with Shopify
Try Shopify for free, and explore all
the tools and services you need to
start, run, and grow your business.

Start free trial

Let’s dive in.

Get inspired: Using TikTok to

Generate 15,000 Sales in One Day

What the data says about

the best time to post on
TikTok
If we’re looking at TikTok as a whole, research
has been done to find what the best times to
post are, and they vary by day of the week.

Influencer Marketing Hub analyzed more than

100,000 TikTok posts to look for engagement
trends and determined these are the best
times to post every day, all in Eastern time:

Monday at 6 a.m., 10 a.m., and 10 p.m.

Tuesday at 2 a.m., 4 a.m., and 9 a.m.
Wednesday at 7 a.m., 8 a.m., and 11 p.m.
Thursday at 9 a.m., 12 a.m., and 7 p.m.
Friday at 5 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m.
Saturday at 11 a.m., 7 p.m., and 8 p.m.
Sunday at 7 a.m., 8 a.m., and 4 p.m.

In this study, the highest engagements

overall were at Tuesday at 9 a.m., Thursday at
12 a.m., and Friday at 5 a.m.

The huge caveat here is that, to make these

numbers useful for you, you need to consider
your own time zone and location of your
viewers.

Free Reading List: Social

Media Marketing Tactics

Want to learn more about how social media

can help drive sales? Download our free,
curated list of high-impact articles.

Get the free reading list

This data is certainly interesting and not a bad

place to start when first crafting your TikTok
strategy. However, it won’t be long before you
can get personalized analytics, and that’s
when you’ll find out what’s truly the best time
to post on TikTok for your specific account.

How to find the best time

to post on TikTok for your
business
There’s a method right in the TikTok app for
finding when your audience is the most
active, and we’ll walk you through the steps to
get there.

Step one: Make a business

account

First, you need to make sure you have a Pro or

Business account on the app. It’s free and
simple to switch. Just go to Settings and
Privacy, then Manage Account, and tap Switch
to Business Account. This will give you access
to analytics, as well as other features.

Step two: Open your analytics

dashboard

Next, you’ll want to find your account’s

analytics. You can get there by clicking the
menu at the top right of your profile screen,
clicking Creator Tools, then Analytics.

That opens TikTok’s analytics dashboard,

which offers all kinds of insight into your
account and your followers.

Step three: Find your follower

activity

If we’re looking to find the best time to post

on TikTok, you’ll want to find the Followers tab
at the top. From there, scroll down and you’ll
see a pane called “Follower activity.”

This is what it looks like on mobile.

This pane will show when your personal

followers are most active.

As you can see above, the data shows that the

activity of the followers of this account ramp
up through the day and peak at 10 p.m. UTC.
TikTok always displays these times in UTC, so
you’ll need to convert to your local time zone.
For this account, for example, 10 p.m. UTC
converts to 5 p.m. ET. From that, we can
determine that this account should aim to
post around that time for the best chance of
high engagement.

You can also find this information on a

desktop at www.tiktok.com/analytics. This
gives a more detailed view, like below. You
can also download your data from the
desktop dashboard.

This is invaluable information because it

shows not just when users are generally
active on TikTok, but when your own followers
are active.

This matters because your followers and your

customers may have different peak activity
times compared to others. If your target
audience and customer base is parents, for
example, their activity might peak in the
evening when they have more free time. If
your target is students, their activity might
peak after school hours.

This is the method Shopify’s TikTok team uses

to determine the best time to post. Our
community of entrepreneurs are most active
in the late afternoon but, again, this might be
different for you.

The dashboard will also show where your

followers are located. If, for example, you’re
based in the US but notice you have a lot of
followers in the UK, you may want to split your
posts to target different time zones.

Step four: Crosscheck your

activity on individual TikTok
posts

Seeing when your followers are most active

gives you a good idea of when they’re most
likely to engage with your content in the form
of likes, comments, and watch time. To drill
down further, navigate to the Content tab in
your analytics dashboard.

From here, you can see data on individual

posts from the last seven days, including total
play time, average watch time, how many
people were reached, and whether they found
the video via your profile or the For You page.

This also includes information on the exact

time and date you posted your video. By
combining your follower analytics with this
data, you can figure out if your strategy for
when you post on TikTok is working. You may
even find that certain content does best at a
particular time of day compared to others.
Again, it’s all highly individual, so digging into
your personal dashboard is key.

Get inspired: How to Make and Sell

Merch on TikTok

Your first priority is just

to start posting
As you can see, the analytics dashboard is
much more personal and specific than the
Influencer Marketing Hub study and can offer
great guidance for your TikTok strategy.

The downside here is that this information

doesn’t start to get detailed until you’ve
reached 100 followers and, of course, you
have to have posted content to get any
analytics at all. You’ll start off with some
insight, but building your audience is key for
the best analytics.

That means if you’re just starting a TikTok

account for your business, the most
important thing is simply to start posting.

TikTok recommends that businesses post one

to four times per day and focus on authentic,
engaging content. You can check out our
guide on TikTok marketing for tips on how to
create the best content for TikTok.

The more you post, the more data, feedback,

and followers you’ll gain, and the more you’ll
be able to pinpoint the best time to post on
TikTok.

Ready to create your business?

Start your free 14-day trial of
Shopify—no credit card
required.

Enter your email address

Start free trial

TOPICS: Social Media

Join 446,005 entrepreneurs who

already have a head start.

Get free online marketing tips and

resources delivered directly to your inbox.

Email address

Subscribe

No charge. Unsubscribe anytime.

Shopify Comment Policy

!
We welcome relevant and respectful
comments. Off-topic comments and spam
will be removed.

Comments Community " #

1 Login

& Favorite Sort by Oldest

Start the discussion…

LOG IN WITH

OR SIGN UP WITH DISQUS ?

Name

Be the first to comment.

✉ Subscribe ⚠ Do Not Sell My Data

QUICKSTART GUIDES

POPULAR

LATEST

Start your 14-day free trial today!

Enter your email address

Start free trial

Try Shopify free for 14 days, no credit card required.

By entering your email, you agree to receive
marketing emails from Shopify.

About Careers Press and Media

Shopify Plus Sitemap

ONLINE STORE POINT OF SALE

Sell online Point of sale

Features Features

Examples Hardware

Website editor
SUPPORT
Online retail

Ecommerce website 24/7 support

Domain names Shopify Help Center

Themes Shopify Community

Shopping cart API documentation

Ecommerce hosting Free tools

Mobile commerce Free stock photos

Ecommerce software Websites for sale

Online store builder Logo Maker

Oberlo Business name generator

Dropshipping Business Research

Store themes
SHOPIFY

Contact

Partner program

A#iliate program

App developers

Investors

Blog topics

Community Events

Terms of Service Privacy Policy USA